Tortillas are often made in relatively large quantities and then refrigerated for consumption later. Although tortillas may be eaten cold, normally before a meal the tortillas are warmed which significantly enhances their flavor and texture. To heat tortillas there is presently one primary method, namely to heat them on a hot metal surface such as a griddle or frying pan. In Mexico, the use of a heavy iron skillet called “el comal” is the traditional and proven way of warming tortillas because this method achieves the best flavor and quality for warming corn and flour tortillas. Cooks using el comal and other conventional methods are aware that corn tortillas normally should be heated longer than flour tortillas.
Some drawbacks of using el comal and other conventional methods are that they are very time consuming, demand constant human supervision to assure quality and safety, and require the use of a “comal” or pan plus an external source of heat such as a stove or fire. Other methods exist such as by warming tortillas in a microwave, convection oven, or directly on top of a stove burner or a grill. However, these methods also require constant supervision; some are unsafe due to the danger of causing fire, and all are found unreliable in producing consistent results in flavor and quality for the warming of corn and flour tortillas.
In a home all members of the family normally eat at the same time and therefore it is preferable to heat a number of tortillas at once. Similarly, in a restaurant it is often desirable to heat many tortillas at the same time.
However, in a home environment the surface area for heating tortillas is limited and often may not be sufficient to heat enough tortillas for all members of the family at the same time. In a restaurant, depending on the circumstances there may at times be insufficient space to heat enough tortillas to meet the customer's requirements at a particular time.
A possible solution to the problem of heating a large number of tortillas simultaneously is a certain type of large capacity toaster. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,150 describes a “multi-level toaster”. The multi-level toaster described in the patent consists of a vertically extending, cylindrical structure having a plurality of modules which may be integrally joined together in a single housing or may be stacked separately one upon the other. Each module comprises at least one heating unit having a horizontally oriented aperture opening into the unit. Accordingly, it would be possible to heat tortillas in the multi-level toaster. However, the multi-level toaster has serious shortcomings if used as a tortilla warmer. For example, in the multi-level toaster each heating unit is separated from its vertical neighbors by a heat insulating layer and includes a food receiving grill, an upper heating element located above the grill, and a lower heating element located below the grill. Thus if a tortilla were heated on a grill, for each tortilla two heating elements would be required.
As yet another example of a shortcoming of the multi-level toaster if it were used as a tortilla warmer, it should be understood that air pockets trapped in tortillas can inflate the tortilla during heating. This could result in parts of the tortilla contacting the heating element which might burn the tortilla and create an unsafe condition by causing a risk of fire. Yet another example of a shortcoming of the multi-level toaster if it were used as a tortilla warmer, it should be understood that if a batch of tortillas are warmed at the same time then it is desirable to remove all of the tortillas from the heating device at the same time. However, although the multi-level toaster includes a mechanism to permit the removal of a plurality of slices of toast at the same time, the mechanism is complex, appears significantly expensive from a manufacturing standpoint, and is apparently less than completely practical or desirable from a functional perspective.